On to New Hampshire

posted at 3:55 pm on January 4, 2012 by Tina Korbe

Up to this point, the sheer size of the GOP presidential field has actually been somewhat of an asset. It’s a positive to have anywhere from six to nine national potentially presidential figures making the case for the conservative cause to voters across the country. Granted, some of the candidates have espoused conservative principles more accurately and/or more effectively than others, but, by and large, all the GOP candidates have, at one time or another, pounded the president on jobs and the economy and reminded voters they’re generally not better off now than they were four years ago.

But now that the primaries have more or less begun, it’s a different situation. Voters have begun to express their preferences. Candidates with paltry support serve only to keep their few diehard supporters — presumably folks highly dedicated to the proposition of a one-term Obama administration — from coming around to support a different candidate. Michele Bachmann made an effective attack dog, she spoke eloquently about Obamacare and she’s clearly hard-working, but she made the right decision this morning.

Now, on to New Hampshire, which should surely eliminate at least one more …

The picture in New Hampshire is significantly different than in Iowa, but some things are the same. Just as they did as of this weekend in Iowa, polls show Mitt Romney running in front, his supposedly closest rivals fading and Rick Santorum surging somewhat. Reuters reports:

The morning after Romney’s narrow victory in Iowa’s caucus, the 7 News/Suffolk University daily tracking poll of voters showed the former governor of Massachusetts holding 43 percent support, level with his results over the last two days.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul trailed Romney by a widening margin, with 14 percent support among voters polled on January 2 and 3, down from 16 percent in results released a day earlier. New Hampshire primary voters will go to the polls on January 10 in the second contest of the campaign to choose a Republican rival to incumbent President Barack Obama in the November general election.

Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who trailed Romney by a narrow margin in Iowa’s party caucuses on Tuesday, ranked fifth among New Hampshire voters with just 6 percent support. But the poll showed he had gained ground on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose support level fell to 7 percent of respondents, down from 9 a day earlier.

Elsewhere, the Reuters article indicates that Jon Huntsman — with 9 percent — remains in third place. Given his total absence in Iowa, it’s hard to imagine that he’ll overtake either of the front two, who finished well in the Hawkeye State. But it’s also perfectly plausible he’ll retain his third place position. That’s not enough to make his campaign, but it also doesn’t matter much if Huntsman manages to beat a soaring Santorum in this particular state.

That means — just as in Iowa — the race for fourth place will be more interesting than the race for the top. (It also means that Romney will again occupy the top tier with two candidates who aren’t likely to beat him out for the nomination itself.) If Santorum pushes Gingrich to fifth, that will be highly problematic for the former Speaker as he heads into South Carolina, where Rick Perry (whom Gingrich just narrowly beat in Iowa) will presumably make a concentrated push. For that matter, if Gingrich were to finish fifth in New Hampshire, he might not make it to South Carolina at all.

But — also as in Iowa — Gingrich sees himself not in a race with Santorum but in a race with Romney. Check out this New Hampshire newspaper ad Gingrich greeted Romney with this morning:

Gingrich clearly wants to do well in New Hampshire, even though he says the state he really needs to win is South Carolina. So he begins again the game of managing expectations.

That aside, New Hampshire — just as Iowa — will matter for the candidate(s) it eliminates and the momentum it builds for Romney.

gingrich – ‘the bold, Reagan conservative’, absolutely priceless :-) as much as he whined about the negative ads and allhe past few weeks – doesn’t sound too ‘bold’ to me, nor does it bring Reagan to mind in any way that makes sense…

Means he wore a pointy hat like the pope and gave fire breathing sermons like Huck.

hanzblinx on January 4, 2012 at 4:11 PM

LOL! No… not really… no hat required.

Also it is very rare that a Bishop or Stake President speaks in Church. It is normal that the Bishop ask a couple of members in the congregation do the speaking in church on Sunday. They are typically given at least a week to prepare a talk, but are assigned a topic to speak on.

Right now it’s a money game. That’s all these little, otherwise insignificant, states are about. If you have the money to get to April, then you will know if you are viable with the electorate. It really screws the later states’ ability to weigh in since we’re stuck with what’s left.

gingrich – ‘the bold, Reagan conservative’, absolutely priceless :-) as much as he whined about the negative ads and allhe past few weeks – doesn’t sound too ‘bold’ to me, nor does it bring Reagan to mind in any way that makes sense…

Now, can I get one Romneybot to try and defend his Democrat tax plan?
mankai on January 4, 2012 at 4:19 PM

Not from me. I don’t like his tax plan at all, but I understand why he’s doing it (it’s all politics, to push back against the class warfare memes that he’s an out of touch millionaire who doesn’t care about the Middle Class blah blah blah – which unfortunately is not the exclusive domain of the Left).

We obviously need a complete rehaul of the system, and one which creates economic growth, and a flatter tax with fewer exemptions is the way to go. I like the Deficit Commission plan BUT would never suggest we have a VAT on top of the income tax, so that’s a non starter (and even Romney agrees with that).

If Congress presented him with a flatter plan he’d sign it, once in office. Or just come up with a plan himself. But he has to get there first…

Flopney didn’t pull away with it in Iowa. He’d have you believe he didn’t campaign seriously there, but he spent a lot of money trying to buy his way to a decisive win. He got the same vote total as he got in 2008.

If Shittens Flopney gets less than 40% of the vote in NH it will be a failure for him. He has lived there for 6 or 7 years and attempted to buy every single vote in the state. He’s had 40% since polling began. “Winning” with say 35% of the vote would not bode well for him. Under 30% would cement his unviability.

gingrich – ‘the bold, Reagan conservative’, absolutely priceless :-) as much as he whined about the negative ads and allhe past few weeks – doesn’t sound too ‘bold’ to me, nor does it bring Reagan to mind in any way that makes sense…

jimver on January 4, 2012 at 4:00 PM

Not according to this and I’m assuming Coulter wouldn’t have written it without backing it up.

In Ronald Reagan’s autobiography, “An American Life​,” he writes extensively about supply-side economics. He cites Jack Kemp several times. He never mentions Newt Gingrich.

(However, in Reagan’s massive 784-page diary, Newt’s name does come up — once. On Jan. 3, 1983, Reagan wrote that he met with “a group of young Repub Congressmen,” and says that one of them, “Newt Gingrich,” proposed freezing federal spending at 1983 levels, which Reagan rejected out of hand because it would “cripple our defense program.”)

Reagan wrote that he met with “a group of young Repub Congressmen,” and says that one of them, “Newt Gingrich,” proposed freezing federal spending at 1983 levels, which Reagan rejected out of hand because it would “cripple our defense program.”)

The only candidate I could see ruled out in New Hampshire is Huntsmen. Perry, Gingrich, and even Santorum to a very large degree are skipping the state to focus on South Carolina. This essentially leaves Romney and Huntsmen to duke it out, and after Huntsmans poor Iowa showing and McCains endorsement of Romney, I have a hard time not seeing Romney cleaning house there.

(Note: McCains endorsement matters in only a few states in the entire country, but New Hampshire is one of them.)

If Huntsmen crashes and burns then Romney will go into South Carolina without competition from the moderate wing of the Republican party, where as Gingrich, Perry, Paul, and Santorum will be splitting the social, and libertarian wings.

Thats a pretty good position for Romney, not great but pretty good. If he wins Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, he will in all likelihood wrap up the nomination early on. While this is understandably distressing for many people, if we are going to have Romney then getting the nomination wrapped up fairly early is probably a good thing.

You know, gives us plenty of time to get over heated emotions, and gives the Romney campaign plenty of time to think up some way to make peace with the other factions of the Republican party.

“Soaring Santorum”…what a laugher of a silly statement! He is a dead letter, and his second place finish in Iowa (the only state where he had a shot at winning) proves it.

Perry and Gingrich are where we need to focus, as only one of them can survive January. Hopefully.

That means that, after January, we can expect to see Romney, Huntsman, and one of Gingrich/Perry (I predict Gingrich) duking it out through Super Tuesday. It’ll be great. Then, on Super Tuesday, we can expect to have a nominee and it’s on to Obama and the White House.

End ObamaCare!! Roll back the regualtory Super State!! Send all Democrats to hell!

“Soaring Santorum”…what a laugher of a silly statement! He is a dead letter, and his second place finish in Iowa (the only state where he had a shot at winning) proves it.

Perry and Gingrich are where we need to focus, as only one of them can survive January. Hopefully.

That means that, after January, we can expect to see Romney, Huntsman, and one of Gingrich/Perry (I predict Gingrich) duking it out through Super Tuesday. It’ll be great. Then, on Super Tuesday, we can expect to have a nominee and it’s on to Obama and the White House.

End ObamaCare!! Roll back the regualtory Super State!! Send all Democrats to hell!

I still think the anti-Romney crowd missed their one and only opportunity to stop Romney. Perry was that one candidate capable of beating him in a long, drawn-out battle, but for Perry to be viable in South Carolina (which he has to WIN, not just do well) he needed at least Santorum and Bachmann to be out of the race after NH. And with Santorum’s victory in Iowa, that simply isn’t going to happen.

It would have been difficult enough convincing the conservative, Tea Party wing to unite behind Perry if he’d come in 4th behind, say, Romney, Paul and Gingrich in Iowa. Uniting behind Perry in SC now after what happened last night seems impossible.

Two choices now. 1) Accept that Romney’s the nominee and let’s go into the general unified, without a long, drawn-out, damaging battle. 2) Throw your eggs in the Huntsman basket.

In the end, everyone ought to realize that Tim Pawlenty was the guy…and I will never forgive Bachmann for running her carnival and pushing a serious candidate out of the race.

“Rick Santorum is counting on momentum to carry him to victory in New Hampshire and beyond.

He has little choice.

The former Pennsylvania senator devoted virtually all his time and energy to the Iowa caucuses, where he barely lost to GOP front-runner Mitt Romney.
But Santorum has only a skeleton staff in other states. He also has very little money.

With the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary just six days away, Santorum has significant hurdles to climb if he hopes to emerge as Romney’s stiffest challenger for the party nod…”

Why would candidates put all their energy and money into Romney’s home state? Instead, some are giving it a pass and focusing on the subsequent primarys where they know they will gain votes.

What is factual is the Romney pile-on. Romney has not been vetted in this campaign. All voters have heard thus far is the biased Republican elitist and establishment spin since they have decided Romney will be the winner.

What is factual is that Gingrich will take off the gloves and we will finally have Romney publicly forced to answer unscripted questions. I can hardly wait to see Mr. Petulant taken to task!

The ravishing and smart Noelle Nikpour was just on Cavuto’s show saying the race is over. And she is right. Newt is moot. His campaign can’t buy a pot to pizz in and unless they really do change their state’s names to Newt Hampshire, Newt Jersey, Newt York and Newt Mexico he won’t be able afford a soap box to stand on. He had his chance in Ioway and couldn’t even sell his story to them. Money talks and Newt walks.